Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [69]
Lee watched as raindrops gathered in rows on the windowsill, silent silver sentinels standing briefly shoulder to shoulder before sliding to the ground. Why do we bother? he thought. Why fight the same wars over and over, make the same mistakes, slaughter and enslave our fellow human beings? What was the point, really, if we weren’t going to evolve as a species? Why should each generation drag themselves through the same tired territory as the one before, if mankind as a whole was not getting wiser, kinder, more enlightened? The mind-numbing repetitiveness of human history was exhausting.
He felt the old darkness descending, and stood up, forcing his mind away from this train of thought. He needed to monitor thoughts like these before they gained momentum. Depression was like an underground fault line in his emotional life, and he tried hard not fall into that long, slippery slide to the bottom. The wrong thought, a sudden flash of insight, morning sunlight coming in the window in a certain way—anything could set off an episode.
He forced himself to concentrate on the case files awaiting him on his desk. Just as he sat down at his desk, his cell phone beeped. He picked it up and looked at the screen: NEW TEXT MESSAGE. He forced himself to breathe more slowly as he scrolled down to see the message:
That was a close call. Better luck next time.
He put the cell phone down. Better luck next time. Now he was certain that not only had the Slasher posed as a journalist at Annie’s funeral, but he had also sent Lee the messages about his sister. But how could he know details that were never released to the press? It was troubling…very troubling.
Lee started to dial Chuck, but as he did, his phone rang. He picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Heya, Boss. Whaddya know—I finally reached you!”
“Hi, Eddie.”
“So what’s up?”
Lee hesitated. He wasn’t sure how much he should tell Eddie. After all, he wasn’t part of the official investigative team. But ever since those dark nights at St. Vincent’s, Eddie had been a confidant, confessor, and therapist all rolled into one.
“I think I saw him today.”
“Jeez. Really?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”
“How d’you know?”
“I don’t really want to go into detail over the phone.”
“’Fraid someone might be listening in?”
“No, not that.” The truth was that Lee wanted to get back to work.
“Hey, you eat yet?”
“Uh, no.”
“Okay, listen—meet me at the Taj in ten minutes, huh? I’ll tell you what Diesel and Rhino have turned up.”
The Taj Mahal was Eddie’s favorite Indian restaurant on East Sixth Street, and it was exactly a block and a half from Lee’s apartment.
Lee glanced at the clock above his desk. Six-thirty. He would have to eat sooner or later.
“Okay.”
“Right. Ten minutes. See you then.”
Lee left a message for Nelson on his home phone (Nelson didn’t own a cell phone—he considered them a sign of the Apocalypse), and called Chuck on his cell. Chuck didn’t answer, so Lee left a message for him too, threw on a coat, and left for the Taj Mahal.
When Lee arrived, Eddie was already seated, tucking into a basket of pappadam—paper-thin, crispy Indian bread studded with peppercorns. Like most of the other restaurants on Sixth Street, the Taj Mahal was small—long and narrow. Its walls were festooned with a dizzying assortment of decorative lights: colored fairy lights, red-hot chili pepper lanterns, and strings of Christmas lights. All of the Sixth Street restaurant owners seemed to have the same notion of interior decoration. It was always Christmas on Sixth Street. You could see the street from blocks away, flashing, sparkling, glittering, glowing. Lee had tried to come up with a theory to explain the phenomena—some kind of relationship between